Bay for incoming material

About 95% of what arrives at the MK facility is sold for re-use.  About 3% is used for 'energy from waste' (incinerators fuelling heating) and the small residue goes to landfill.

Baled bottles
(New exhibit for Tate Modern / contender for Turner Prize?)

Before being baled, bottles and cans go through an automated sorting process that uses, among other things, magnets, paddles and jets of air.  The conveyor belts move swiftly (about 260 cm per second) and the whole facility processes around 50 to 60 tonnes of waste per hour.

'Contaminants' (items that have been wrongly included) have to be removed by hand, so it's clearly better for those doing the sorting, if items have been washed before being put into the boxes. 

The general level of cleanliness of the material was surprisingly good.

  Baled cans

  Paper being baled

NB  Although, as can be seen above, the Milton Keynes facility (which takes the contents of blue boxes), accepts newspapers, you should put them into your GREEN box. They are classed as 'high grade' paper, which can be sold elsewhere to raise revenue.